He keeps his eyes closed
expecting that whatever
is there will go on
A Day Like Others
They went to the library
because three new books were on hold,
ready for pick up
and they’d finished six books
so they needed to be returned.
Then they walked around town,
enjoying the mild spring day,
before deciding to go to the Co-op.
Because it’d been so long.
While they were there,
they picked up sandwiches,
chips,
and locally baked pastries.
Then walked back up to the car
and got a library book each,
and walked through the breeze in the park’s sun and shade
until they found a picnic table.
Whereupon they sat,
eating and reading in silence
until two hours later,
when she said,
“I’m cold. Let’s go home.”
The Animal Update
“Hold your horses,”
A little bird told me,
grinning like a Cheshire cat.
“A fly on the wall says,
he used to drink like a fish,
but he’s gone cold turkey.
Now he’s happy as a clam
though lazy as a dog.
Busy as a bee
feathering his nest.
As cute as a bug’s ear
in his cat’s pyjamas,
mad as a hatter,
but quiet as a mouse,
maybe because the cat got his tongue.”
I always thought him the cat’s meow,
sly as a fox
but crazy as a loon,
a night owl willing to party
until the cows come home.
Overheard Confession
“No one is putting anything up my ass. Sorry, no colonoscopy. This policy is traced to something done to me when I was a child. I don’t know the backstory but my auntie prevailed on my mother to give me an enema. Other than vowing to never let anything go up my ass ever again, I’ve blocked out all memory of it. I believe that Mom regretted it to her death. Whatever it was, whatever happened, I found the equipment in the hall closet, got a pair of scissors, and cut it all up. I was four years old.”
Wrong Words
Traces
Different floofs leave these places
with bits of fur and other traces
bite marks, claw scratches,
round dimples in furniture
where they made their beds
their scents fade
and the signs disappear
but we remember these floofs
which we hold so dear
Digitized Smells
I have my telemedicine video call today. It has an element incorporated that I knew nothing about: digitized smell.
Apparently, recent software improvements has been added to many video-conferencing systems. These improvements capture local air, digitize it, send it through the net to the other end, and then reproduces the smell. This is being done in conjunction with telemedicine calls because studies show that patients develop greater confidence and feel calmer when they experience ‘hospital smells’. That mélange of odors isn’t by accident. It’s actually a carefully contrived blend created by psychologists and marketing specialists over decades of study. It is the smell which makes people feel safer, more secure, and soothed.
Trippy, right? All this time, I thought the smells were an accidental by-product.
The second aspect of the technology is that it allows the healthcare practitioners to smell you. That aids them in their assessment about your state of health.
I can see that. Makes total sense. It’s also fake news. Yes, fiction. Made it all up. Yep, I lied.
Shout Out
I’m always complaining, ranting, and whining about things that don’t work. Especially technology that doesn’t work or that doesn’t live up to the initial hype. Like ATMs. Teller machines. They were supposed to save us all money, they claimed, back in the beginning. Why, with the savings they would make, they’d be paying us zillions of dollars in interest. Sure.
Customer service is usually my target. I’m still dealing with the PIN issued for the new credit card because the PIN still doesn’t work —
But that’s not what this post is supposed to be about, so let me make that shift. This is instead about doing my income taxes.
I use software to do my taxes, been doing that for over twenty years. I’ve been using H&R Block’s software for the last nine years. Each year, the whole process becomes a little better. This year, it sparkled with amazing efficiency. I completed the taxes and filed a few weeks ago. “Your return should be accepted without two to three days,” the software told me. Zap, my Fed return was accepted in thirty minutes. Thirty minutes later, Oregon accepted it.
Well, cool, isn’t that great? I thought so. “You should receive your refund in two to three weeks,” the software told me. The IRS has made this part really easy, establishing a place online where you can put in some info and see what’s going on with your tax return. I figured that I’d check that the next week for an update.
Two days later, I checked into the checking account online. Lo, a deposit was pending, and gave the date when it would be received, along with the amount. Yes, it was my tax refund. I was receiving it less than seven days after filing.
I thought that deserved a shout out.
Morning Routine
The door opened. He tottered out and stopped in shade and sunshine on the hard white ground. Good morning, he said to the air. Good morning, sunshine. He liked the air and sunshine, though neither answered him.
The blue bird came by and said hello. He liked the bird. It was always friendly and noisy.
The man came out, talking to him in his busy language. He liked the man. He mewed that information to the man, who went by him in a scissoring flash of legs.
He decided to follow the man across the dewy wet grass, see what’s what, but the man went back into the house, speaking as he always did, which roughly translated to, I am leaving you, and closed the door, as he always did, leaving him alone, in the grass, staring back.
A bee came by, and another bird (one he didn’t know) stopped on the tree and said hello. He didn’t know the bird, so he didn’t answer. After requesting permission (which he gave with a nod), the bird darted down in the yard to visit the grass, then said good-bye and flew away.
He settled onto the grass. Cold under his belly fur, the grass sent a wet shock up through him. The sun was peeking through trees. It was always shy at first, hiding behind trees, leaves, and clouds. But then it came out and told him, good morning. How are you?
The sunshine stroked his black fur with its warm hand. I am fine, he answered, closing his eyes to nap.
Michael Seidel, writer 